Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable LifeAnthony ReynoldsOmnibus PressLondon, UK321 pgs$24.95ISBN: 978-1-84938-138-3 Leonard Norman Cohen was born at a quarter to seven in the morning to Nathan and Masha in Montreal on the Friday of September 21, 1934.Let it be known right here and now, that Leonard Cohen is a legend; a poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, musician. He is the original Renaissance man of the mid twentieth century as far as music and poetry go. Cohen is a true master and his story is nothing short... read more »
San Francisco PoemsLawrence FerlinghettiCity Lights FoundationSan Francisco, CA96 pgs$9.95ISBN: 978-1-931494-01-3 Golden Gate At the Golden GateA single plover far at sea wings across the horizonA single rower almost out of sight rows his skull into eternityAnd I take a Buddha crystal in my hand And begin becoming pure light Praise Beers Bookstore. I never know what I will find on any given day when I cruise their aisles. Well it just happened that today, (I think it's Tuesday); I found myself in front o... read more »
Doctor ZhivagoBoris PasternakA New Translation by Richard Peuear and Larissa VolokhonskyPantheon Books,New York, NY$30.00,513 pgsISBN: 978-0-307-37769-2Reviewed by BL Kennedy They walked and walked and sang “Memory Eternal”, and whenever they stopped, the singing seemed to be carried on by their feet, the horses, the gusts of wind.Before her recent passing, the poet Do Gentry turned me on to this book. Hey look, I’ll plead ignorant; I’ve never read Doctor Zhivago until this new translation. Up until now,... read more »
Graffiti NYCHugo Martinez and with photographs by NATO (artist)Prestel PublishingNew York, NY$20.00150 pgsISBN: 3-7913-3673-8 The motivating idea in creating this book is that graffiti—has been since its inception, generally (and indeed intentionally) excluded from the institutional world of art. This book, the first in a series developed by members of New York’s ALL CITY think tank, is based on a fundamental conviction that graffiti is not an anthropological phenomenon to be dissected, not a social mala... read more »
LovecraftHans Radionoff, Enrique Breccia, Keith GiffenDC Comics$24.95ISBN: 1-4012-0110-5 When I was a kid, there were only two paperback copies of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft available to the general public. They were really cheap Lancer paperbacks The Color Out of Space and The Dunwich Horror. Little did anyone know at that time that over the years, H.P. Lovecraft would become the 20th centuries to Edgar Allen Poe. Now, there is this beautiful graphic novel written Hans Radionoff, Enrique Breccia and... read more »
HPB: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena BlavatskySylvia CranstonG.P. Putnam$30.00ISBN: 0-87477-688-0 This is a big book about a big woman and her influence on the 19th and 20th century. In fact, this book is about her worldwide legend. Helena Blavatsky was a cigar smoking, hard drinking spiritualist with a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Now, some 100 years after her death comes this incredible and very critical biography of her life and work in the creation of the modern Theosophical m... read more »
On the Road: The Original ScrollJack KerouacPenguin BooksNew York, NY$16.00ISBN: 978-0-14-310546-6 This is the legendary first draft: rougher, wilder, and racier than the well known 1957 edition. For years, I thought it was just a rumor that Kerouac’s original draft of On the Road still even existed. I was wrong. Here is the typed first draft of that classic.On the Road was originally typed as a long, single spaced paragraph on eight sheets of tracing paper, which Kerouac taped together to form a scroll ... read more »
The Girl with the Sturgeon Tattoo: A ParodyLars ArffssenSt. Martin’s Griffin200 pgs$9.99ISBN: 978-0-312-61050-0 They lay naked on the ergonomic Dux mattress, limbs entwined like two meatballs. It was three in the afternoon, and already pitch dark. “Was it good for you, too?” Professor Dr. Sven Svenssen asked, turning on his side to face his new lover.The girl nodded, then snapped him across the nose with her female condom. “That,” she said “was for all the women you’ve anally raped.” Arguably the three m... read more »
The Number of ChaosDo GentrySheltering Pines Press18 pgs$5.00 And Leave No Space Within You Empty Above the ice locked snowline,a scattering of tents breathesin the empty daylightlike bright parachutesor pairs of wings unfurledand drying in the sun Life, you say,Is like a house collapsing into dust,Here and there a doorway left intact,or a window frame you could climb throughleaving those sleepinglocked in their darkness,hair fanned out like cobwebs on the pillow,blankets taking the permanent shapeof th... read more »
In the Garden of BeastsErik LarsonCrown Publishing448 pgs$26.00ISBN: 978-0-307-40887-6 Once, at the dawn of a very dark time, an American father and daughter found themselves suddenly transported from their snug home in Chicago to the heart of Hitler’s Berlin. They remained there for four and a half years, but it is their first year that is the subject of the story to follow, for it coincided with Hitler’s ascent from chancellor to absolute tyrant, when everything hung in the balance and nothing was cert... read more »
